By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com
My wife and I have been on the most remarkable journey a married couple can take.
We entered the world of full-fledged retirement not many years ago. We had lived for more than two decades in Amarillo, Texas. Then we packed up our belongings, sold our house and settled eventually in what once was a sleepy little burg just northeast of Dallas.
Princeton sits in Collin County. We moved to a city with a declared population of 6,807 residents, according to the 2010 census.
Well, I’ve got a flash for you. That sleepy little burg isn’t so sleepy these days. The 2020 census became known this week and Princeton saw its resident total triple in the past decade.
The population now stands at 18,338 residents. Near as I can tell, even that figure is likely out of date. You see, my wife and I reside in a residential development that continues to grow every single day.
New houses are sprouting up all around us. Cement trucks are pouring slabs to our west and south. Houses are being framed right on top of the newly dried cement. I have no clue what the population of Princeton is at this very moment; I only can conjecture that the census figure is a bit low.
I don’t recall ever in my life moving into what could be considered something of a residential hot spot. I keep hearing stories from Realtors and others in the business about how people selling houses end up being caught in the middle of bidding wars as people seek to move into Collin County, or to Denton County, or to Dallas County, or to Tarrant County.
It’s crazy, man!
It took very little time for us to settle into our new digs. We’re delighted to have gotten here when we did, as the price of homes springing up around are selling for prices that would have scared us away when we were preparing to purchase a home.
The Princeton city manager told me not long after we moved here that the city’s long-range growth plan projects a population of about 115,000 residents in the next three decades. I don’t know if we’ll be around to watch that happen.
What I am watching now, though, is sufficient to make my head spin.